[amsat-bb] Re New Satellites For Beginners - RS12 et, European Point of View

["Mike Hooles" <Mikehooles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When RS12 was operating over Europe on a normal day, there were many CW and
SSB stations from one end of the transponder to the other.
FO20/29 on the other hand I find to be most disappointing, with only  about
10 percent of its bandwidth in use, mostly SSB, with one or perhaps 2 CW
stations. Even AO40 seems to have spare bandwidth at the upper end of the
uplink, maybe it's different in the U.S.
It begs 2 questions, why was RS12 more popular and do we really need such
wide bandwidth transponders.

I believe a lot of HF stations have a 2 metre transmitter for local work and
can be tempted into trying satellite mode,  lets exploit it. (that's how I
started and got hooked).